Tent of Miracles

Citizen Kane doused with caipirinha and given a carnival spin, dos Santos’s delightfully ribald tribute to the many cultures and races of Bahian society adapts the novel by famed author Jorge Amado. Framed as a film-within-a-film rediscovery of the secret life of a cultural figure, Tent of Miracles follows one Pedro Archanjo, an Afro-Brazilian medical school worker/musician/dancer/drinker/lover who became a radical anthropologist dedicated to the customs, folk tales, and beliefs of the beloved mixed-race outsiders all around him (and to miscegenation, both theory and practice). Like Archanjo, dos Santos produces a text against classism and racism, and looks toward what Brazil can be.